Vietnam has dismissed what it called “groundless” accusations from Google and McAfee that it had apparently used malicious computer programs to hack Web sites and spy on political opponents.
Google Inc said Vietnam had apparently used software known as “malware” to snoop on opponents of a controversial bauxite mine planned for the Central Highlands. It said the cyber-attacks had targeted “potentially tens of thousands of people.”
The perpetrators “may have political motivations and may have some allegiance to the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” wrote George Kurtz, chief technology officer of online security firm McAfee.
“The comments are groundless,” Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga said of the statements posted on Google and McAfee security blogs last week.
Nga’s statement appeared on the foreign ministry Web site late on Monday.
The bauxite mining project involving a subsidiary of Chinese state-run aluminum company Chinalco has attracted strong opposition from people who fear it would cause major environmental problems and lead to a flood of Chinese workers into the strategically sensitive region.
Bauxite is used to produce alumina, a key ingredient in aluminum.
Late last year, the government detained several bloggers who criticized the bauxite mine, and in December a Web site called bauxitevietnam.info, which had drawn millions of visitors opposed to the mine, was hacked.
The malware apparently began circulating at about that time, according to the McAfee blog. It said someone hacked into a Web site run by the California-based Vietnamese Professionals Society and replaced a keyboard program that can be downloaded from that site with a malicious program.
The society’s membership is made up mostly of overseas Vietnamese, many of whom fled the country after the communist forces won the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975.
The social networking Web site Facebook has been blocked in Vietnam since late last year. While the government has not directly acknowledged blocking Facebook, workers at two state-controlled Internet service providers said they had been ordered to block it.
At the time, Vietnam said it reserved the right to block Web sites that it considers a threat to national security.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
RSS